


July 04: Glamor

by LupusScintilla (inkandblade)



Series: July Prompt Table [4]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Beta Derek Hale, Camp Nanowrimo, Human Stiles Stilinski, Implied Pining Derek Hale, M/M, Not Beta Read, Patient Derek Hale, Pre-Slash, Prompt Fic, Sneaky Stiles Stilinski
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-04
Updated: 2017-07-04
Packaged: 2018-11-23 08:25:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11398806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkandblade/pseuds/LupusScintilla
Summary: Stiles stepped back out of the waiter’s way and slipped behind one of the standing tables lined up close to the wall of the club. It wasn’t much darker than the rest of the place, but it would keep him hidden. The amulet was powerful enough to deflect attention and give the impression of someone who looked very different to him. It wasn’t enough to make him look like another person completely if he was focused on. It would do. Derek wouldn’t be expecting to see him, so he wouldn’t be looking.





	July 04: Glamor

Stiles stepped back out of the waiter’s way and slipped behind one of the standing tables lined up close to the wall of the club. It wasn’t much darker than the rest of the place, but it would keep him hidden. The amulet was powerful enough to deflect attention and give the impression of someone who looked very different to him. It wasn’t enough to make him look like another person completely if he was focused on, but it would do. Derek wouldn’t be expecting to see him, so he wouldn’t be looking. If Derek caught sight of the tanned, blond man nursing a beer in the corner, he wouldn’t look twice.

Derek didn’t seem to pay much attention to blonds, though he did like watching men.

There’d been nine weekends where Derek had waved all the other Pack members off for their not-work activities and told them he’d be going camping. Stiles had never been one to take a statement at face value, though, and it hadn’t taken much for him to doubt Derek’s story.

The first weekend of the summer was the wettest, and Derek’s four-wheel-drive had definitely not been on any kind of muddy trail in that time. It hadn’t been washed since the Friday either, as four-year-old Michaela McCall’s slushie accident was still evident on the Toyota’s rear bumper. Stiles had let himself ignore it, however, figuring that Derek had been using the phrase ‘camping’ to just mean ‘getting away from you lot for a while’. Stiles would begrudge no one their mental-health breaks, especially when the whole Pack was back in town for the first time in years. Derek had probably gotten used to more solitude than they were giving him.

When the second weekend came around and Stiles found himself helping Boyd load Derek’s tent and things into the back of the car, though, well. He knew he shouldn’t pry, but he’d done it anyway. Derek’s duffel definitely did not contain the kinds of things one wore while communing with the great outdoors. A quick glimpse had uncovered _Alexander McQueen_ and _Comme des Garçons_ labels. Stiles hadn’t really grown out of jeans and t-shirts himself, but he’d had a couple of things with guys over the last few years who’d worn labels like that. Definitely not for the great outdoors.

The third weekend Stiles had made sure he’d followed far enough behind that Derek didn’t notice he was being tailed all the way into San Francisco. Tonight was Stiles’ seventh time following Derek, his fifth where he’d done more than just get a vague idea of where Derek was hanging out. He had a room in the same hotel. He needed to make sure Derek was okay.

Stiles told himself he was doing this for the Pack. He wasn’t exactly a full witch, but he could wield ash and create warding runes and power things like the amulet he had in his pocket. There hadn’t been any big-bads for a while, and he was making sure he was still in practice. That, and, fancy clothes meant Derek was getting dressed up. Dressing up meant going out or trying to impress someone, or both. Derek’s track record with relationships was even worse than Stiles’ though. And while Stiles always ended up with bad-boys who proved just why they were called that very quickly, Derek’s romantic failures had ended in flames, blood, and gunfire. Stiles was spying on Derek for his own good. And for the good of the Pack, of course.

Derek wasn’t coming into the city to meet a certain person, though. He wasn’t meeting anyone in particular, or at all. Stiles had watched him leave six different bars and go back to six different hotel rooms all alone. He’d drink a little, flirt a little, and a few times he’d even danced a while. Derek never said yes to what were, even from a distance and out of hearing range, obviously propositions. He favored lean, but muscular men. He preferred them a little taller than himself, a little younger but not too much. He all but ignored blonds and seemed to like it more if a guy had dark eyes. He danced with men of all colors, but would step closer to those with skin paler than his own librarian-like pallor.

Derek was talking to one now, leaning in close and smiling, but never once flashing the blue of his wolf eyes or flaring his nostrils. Stiles had wondered just how Derek’s wolf senses could take the noise and the smells and the constant contact with others, but he didn’t seem to notice them. The guy Derek was with was tall and lean and wearing very sexy glasses. He leaned back and laughed, stretching his neck in what would have been a blatant fuck-me-now statement if the guy knew he was talking to a wolf. Derek laughed back.

Stiles had to hear. He didn’t know what Derek was looking for in the crowds, but just watching was probably not going to get him any information he hadn’t already collected. He moved closer. He nodded and handed over cash as he was offered an overpriced and over fancy bottle of beer from an ice bucket carried between two burly waiters. One of them winked at him, and Stiles played the game and licked his lips back at the guy, then ducked to the side so the guy wouldn’t focus on him too much. It would be hard to explain how he’d morphed from surfer-dude to clean-cut, soon-to-be teacher to someone who wasn’t supernatural. It would be harder to explain if the guy was supernatural and Stiles was somehow violating some kind of Pack or Pod or Coven boundary line by being here.

The bucket of beer moving across the room made it easier for Stiles to end up a lot closer to Derek and his bespectacled friend. It took another five or ten minutes before they were within listening range, but Stiles got there without finishing, or spilling, his beer.

“It’s a tempting offer, Spencer, believe me, but I’m not here to find a date or playmate or anything else.”

The guy, Spencer, ran his eyes up and down Derek’s face, then over his chest and down further before finally looking back up. His smile was real. “What’s his name, and how is not having fun with someone else going to help you get over him? Like I said, I’ve seen you a couple of times in the last week or two, and every time you’ve been dressed like you are out to score, hard.”

Stiles couldn’t tell in the club lights, but he’d bet a dozen cover-charges to this joint that Derek was blushing.

“He’s, he’s special, and I don’t really want to get over him. He’s just come back home after being away at college and I need to give him space.” Derek glanced out over the dance floor and gestured at the throng of men. “Clubs are a,” he searched for the word, “pungent distraction.”

Just back from college? Stiles’ heart flipped. It could be anyone from his high school class that had done a Master’s degree. It could be anyone a year or two younger who’d done a four-year stint.

Spencer just smiled a little wider. “I can understand saving yourself for a guy, I was there once myself. But how much space are you going to give him? None of us deserve to wait forever for something that might not happen.”

Derek had mellowed, a lot, in the last year or two, but it was hard to imagine him having this kind of discussion with someone inside the Pack. Unburdening to a stranger had its own appeals, certainly, and Derek was apparently happy to share.

“He’ll be starting a new job soon. He doesn’t need any other stress on top of that.”

Spencer nodded. “And what if he makes a move first? There has to be some kind of something between you or you wouldn’t be waiting at all. If he waltzed up to you right here, right now, would you let him make his own decision on whether he could take that stress? Would you kiss him back?”

Derek’s face went blank a moment, and then Stiles watched his chest rise and fall. “I might fall off my chair, but yeah, I’d let him make that call. And I’d kiss him back.” He turned and looked over the dance floor again. “I’d kiss him for days.”

Spencer looked up, straight at Stiles. The guy’s eyes filled to black, glowed silver for a few moments and then went back to dark brown and human looking again. Shit. Spencer spoke again, but it was in Stiles’ head.

_Well, come and get him then, Spark. I can see your brain trying to figure me out, but don’t bother. I’m somewhere between what you call a vampire and an incubus. I feed on groups like the crowd in here, not single people. Derek here was just an interesting conversation while dinner went on around me._

Stiles blinked and, huh. He’d be looking it up anyway, but okay.

_Come, turn off that trinket you have in your pocket and do what you want to do. The bond between you is already strong. Seal it with that kiss he just offered and feel how much stronger it becomes. I won’t enjoy it as much as you two will, but it will be a fine end to my meal._

Stiles reached down and touched the amulet and then let it drop back into his jeans’ pocket. Spencer, the whatever-he-was, smiled wider than looked quite natural, and stepped back. Derek turned back at the movement and then snapped his head around, nostrils flaring.

“Stiles?”

“Hey, big guy.”

♠

  
_Glamor: [n] the quality of fascinating, alluring, or attracting, especially by a combination of charm and good looks;  magic or enchantment; spell; witchery_

**Author's Note:**

> The prompt table I'm using can be found here.


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